


we'll keep on fighting (till the end)

by Idday



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2015 NHL Entry Draft, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 02:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14227257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idday/pseuds/Idday
Summary: With their first pick in the 2015 NHL entry draft, the Edmonton Oilers select, from Boston University, Jack Eichel.





	we'll keep on fighting (till the end)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm deep in the sad!jack feels. Not sorry.
> 
> Took the title from Queen lyrics and almost made it 'no time for losers' so thank ur lucky stars, my guys.
> 
> If you're featured in this story (or know someone who is), what are you doing here? Leave the fourth wall alone and go have fun with your rich and famous peeps.

With their first pick in the 2015 NHL entry draft, the Edmonton Oilers select, from Boston University, Jack Eichel.

...

Mostly what Jack thinks about, later, is how quiet everything is. How people forget to clap.

In their defense, he sits for a moment, too, silent and stunned, until his sister finally reaches over and touches his knee. “Jack,” she whispers.

He doubts the cameras are even on him. They’d already all been swung around, focused on Connor McDavid. They haven’t left his face, yet.

When Jack stands, there’s a ripple through the room, a whisper. He hugs his dad, long and hard, and his mom, and his sister. He doesn’t trip down the stairs on the way up to the stage. Whoever it is that hands him the orange jersey is smiling, a little stiffly. When he puts the hat on, the applause finally starts, faint at first and then growing thunderous. He smiles, a little helplessly.

First overall.

...

For the first ten minutes, he’s elated. There are pictures and interviews and everybody is confused and a little wary, but it happened.

It happened.

And then he makes his way back to the greenroom, where two staffers are whispering to each other.

“His agent told them he wouldn’t sign in Edmonton,” one of them says. “He told them they’d be throwing their first pick away, if they used it on McDavid.”

So.

The jersey feels stiff and heavy over his shoulders, suddenly. He takes a bottle of water because it’s there, and he thinks, _of course._

...

Jack Eichel didn’t go first overall because he earned it, as it turns out.

He went first overall because the real first overall refused to take it. He went first overall with a caveat, as a replacement, as a joke.

He would have preferred second on his own.

...

Somehow, it’s the worst of both worlds.

...

When Connor McDavid comes back to the greenroom wearing dark blue, he smiles at Jack, and says, “congratulations.”

Eventually, Jack nods at him, because the part of his brain that isn’t still stunned is apparently more polite than the rest of him. He doesn’t say it back. He doesn’t feel that he needs to.

...

People are pissed, but Buffalo’s ecstatic enough that it cancels out most of the ill will. If it were anyone but Connor McDavid, the play wouldn’t have worked, but it was him, and his agent has good PR people on tap. They pretend it was him wanting to go to Buffalo more than it was him rejecting Edmonton. He smiles and speaks in a small voice and says things like, “I just really loved the city and the atmosphere, and, you know, I think that team is capable of doing really great things and I’m just excited to join them.”

In the meantime, Jack is getting twitter hate from his own new team.

...

Jack moves in with Taylor Hall, which he is dubious about, but. Hallsy turns out to be a pretty cool guy.

He and Jack have a lot in common. They’re both the wrong kind of player for this league—too loud, too big, too cocky. They both use that to cover up what they don’t have.

They both went first overall and sometimes wish they hadn’t.

...

Edmonton is as livid to have Jack as they would have been thrilled to have Connor McDavid, and they make it known. Buffalo would have been pissed if they had gotten him, too, which is sort of the rub.

The thing about going second—it would have sucked, in its own way. But he’d had time, and lots of it, to come to terms with that scenario.

It was the shock of it all that hurt more than anything.

...

Connor McDavid moves in with Matt Moulson, which Jack feels like he has no reason to know and yet somehow does. Jack loves Taylor, but he doesn’t understand the Canadian obsession with Kraft Dinner. Also, he’s pretty sure the Moulsons have kids, which would have been kind of cool.

But also, Matt Moulson probably wouldn’t have gotten him drunk on a Thursday, which Taylor does, so.

...

In November, they play the Flames at home and someone throws a beer at Jack.

It’s not that effective, just splatters against the glass and dribbles down onto the shoes of the people in the front row. It’s during a TV timeout, and Jack turns to stare. At first he assumes it must be a Flames fan, but the man is wearing orange—when security drags him away, he’s wearing an Oiler’s home jersey with 97 on the sleeve.

Jack doesn’t say a word, just watches him be dragged off. _He rejected you,_ he wants to say, _he rejected you and I came here for you instead._

“Okay, kiddo?” Taylor asks, when he coasts to a stop next to Jack and taps his helmet. There’s not really an answer to it, and the clock is winding down.

...

Jack’s never actually spoken to Connor McDavid.

It’s a streak he doesn’t intend to break.

...

Sometimes, he lies awake at night and thinks about it like he used to think about going second, before it didn’t happen.

It’s so selfish it makes him want to scream.

Sometimes, he screams, but mostly.

Mostly, he tries not to think about it.

...

In December, Connor McDavid breaks his collarbone.

He’d been having a good season. Better than Jack by a very small margin, though Jack had a better team around him. Jack had scored his first goal in his first game, and it had taken Connor McDavid two games. This is not a fact that he looked up. Someone told him that, in an interview that was supposed to be about his point streak.

Connor McDavid breaks his collarbone, and Jack thinks, _that’s karma, bitch._

He’s not sorry about it.

...

When they go to Buffalo, Connor McDavid is watching in the press box.

In the second period, the crowd starts chanting something, too thunderous to make out properly until Jack finishes a shift and sits down on the bench and the blood stops pounding in his ears. _Connor’s better._ That’s what they’re saying.

Jack doesn’t say anything or do anything. He hopes that his grim resentment is showing on his face. _He didn’t even choose you,_ is what he wants to say, _you were a consolation prize, too. You happened to be next on the list, just like me._

He takes another shift, pointless. The chanting starts up again as soon as his skate blade hits ice.

They call an icing on Buffalo. The crowd boos, and it might be for him.

 _If you gave me a match and all the oil in Edmonton,_ Jack thinks, _I would burn this fucking city to the ground._

...

Afterwards, a reporter asks him if he heard. He got a goal and an assist and he heard. His eyes are stinging and he has to clear his throat before he can answer, and when the media leaves he sits in his stall, still dressed and unshowered, and puts a t-shirt over his head.

He feels Taylor sit next to him, the weight and the warmth of him and the fresh smell of his body gel. Taylor clears his throat a little self-consciously. Jack’s still not crying, but his cheeks are wet and his throat hurts and he has to keep sniffing. He doesn’t uncover his face.

“I don’t know if we tell you enough,” Taylor says after a moment. He sounds uncomfortable, because expressing positive emotions is not his strong suit. Another thing that he and Jack have in common. “But, uh. We’re really happy to have you here, kiddo.”

It. Helps, a little. Jack kind of wants to say, _who’s we?_ But. He just leans into Taylor’s side and breathes a little wetly.

...

For Connor McDavid’s nineteenth birthday, the city brings him out onto the ice and sings him happy birthday. He’s not even cleared to play again, yet.

For Connor McDavid’s nineteenth birthday, Taylor Hall gets Jack the puck, again and again. He has a two goal game and was an inch from the hat trick.

“Hallsy,” Jack says in the car on the way home. “What was that about?”

“We had a team meeting,” Taylor says, casually. “We’re going to get you the Calder. We all decided.”

Despite what people say, there’s nothing particularly cancerous about him.

...

Another thing that he and Jack have in common.

...

Jack gets a text from an unknown number at 2 a.m. in February.

_I need you to know that it wasn’t personal._

Jack doesn’t need the contact to know who it’s from. It’s followed by, _I never meant for it to be like this for you._

It’s so typical that Jack laughs out loud. It’s about what Connor McDavid needs. It’s about what he meant. It’s not about Jack at all.

He goes into his settings and he turns his read receipts on. Then he blocks the number and rolls over and goes to sleep.

...

Jack goes to the All-Star game. Connor McDavid is still injured, but he’s all people ask Jack about.

“I can honestly say I’ve never spoken to him,” Jack says. He can honestly say that. He hopes he can die and still honestly say that.

It’s good to have goals.

...

Buffalo is close enough to Erie that Dylan Strome keeps making headlines going to their games to sit next to Connor McDavid in the press box. It’s close enough to Toronto that Connor McDavid keeps making headlines going to basketball games and concerts and wrestling matches in Canada.

Edmonton is close enough to the Arctic Circle that Jack is in very real danger of freezing his balls off.

...

“When you win the Calder,” Taylor tells him. It’s March in Edmonton and too cold for them to be out on the roof of the building, but here they are. “I’m gonna get you so drunk, baby.”

They’re already pretty drunk. Jack laughs at him, for the first time in maybe months. There’s this Russian kid in Chicago and Connor McDavid’s still in the conversation after he’s played only 40 games because Jack can’t catch a break, but it’s March and he’s the odds on favorite. His team has been killing themselves for this.

It’s a bright side of Edmonton, is the guys.

Jordan’s across the roof because he turns up pretty much wherever Taylor is, but Jack’s pretty sure he’s been sleeping in the lawn chair for the last half hour. Nuge is curled up near his feet in a parka, blinking at them.

“Hallsy,” Jack says, and curls into his side where he’s warm and solid again the chill of the night. “I love you. Did I tell you that, before?”

Taylor holds the whiskey bottle to Jack’s lips and helps him take a swig, because he’s good people. “Love you too, kiddo,” he says.

...

Jack wants to play 82 games. He plays 81, because he gets food poisoning. It doesn’t even surprise him at this point, that he falls short.

But. He gets a goal in the last game and Taylor brings him the puck and smacks him a kiss and smacks him on the ass. They’re not going to the playoffs, but Jack’s going to Vegas in two months.

...

Edmonton doesn’t cheer for him, but they’ve stopped booing. That’s.

That’s something.

...

Jack doesn’t take anyone to the Awards ceremony. He thinks about asking his sister, but then he thinks about losing and he thinks it might be easier if he did that alone.

...

When they call his name, the room isn’t silent.

That’s what he remembers, afterwards.


End file.
